PTAs banking on record turnout for Election Day bake sales

Record voter turnout projected for tomorrow could have a sweet outcome for schools that are serving double-duty as polling places: a record take for parent-organized Election Day bake sales.

At PS 183 on the Upper East Side, parents will try to capitalize on long lines and captive audiences for the first time ever after two mothers independently pitched the idea of an Election Day bake sale to the Parent-Teacher Association, said Lisa Ehrlich, PTA co-president. Nearly 100 parents have volunteered to bring baked goods or staff the sale, Ehrlich said, and the PTA has heard from other schools that it could net as much as $800 — a sizable lagniappe at a time when school budget cuts are thought to be impending.

In Park Slope, the PTA at PS 10 is shooting for closer to $1,000, said Parent Coordinator Madeleine Seide, who noted that the school is a polling site for South Park Slope and its parents pride themselves on their baking skills. Plus, she said, “people want their early morning coffee and a muffin.”

Staff members, teachers, and other parents are working with PS 10’s PTA to keep the bake sale replenished with primarily homemade baked goods throughout the day, Seide said.

How many PTAs will be hawking brownies to voters tomorrow morning is not known. Neither the Department of Education nor its Office of Family Engagement and Advocacy, which works with families, encourages PTAs to use Election Day traffic to their advantage, according to DOE spokesman William Havemann.

Last week, several elected officials from Brooklyn, including City Council members David Yassky and Letitia James and Borough President Marty Markowitz, held a press conference to call on schools in Brooklyn to hold bake sales tomorrow and on voters to “act generously” as they wait in line.